Sorry guys, yes the NOTAM website can be a pain, but there is NO excuse for any aviator to blunder into a Reds TRA
And if an aviator does everything he can be expected to do, but the Reds TRA is not brought to his attention due to a problem with the system he is using?
I'm thinking about ChrisN's recent experiences of the AIS briefing service (
here and
here), whereby he e-mailed them for a briefing, and they responded to his query - but with a radius 1/4 of the size he asked for. He only became aware of this because the web-based query engine started working shortly afterwards, and he noticed NOTAMs missing from the AIS reply to his query.
Had the query engine not started working, or had he not decided to have checked it anyway (which I think would have been quite reasonable since he had already obtained a briefing from AIS), he most likely would never have known about the missing NOTAMs. If this meant that something relevant - a Reds display or anything else - had been missing, I think the presenting the e-mail from AIS would probably have been reasonable mitigation of busting the display or whatever other restricted area had been missed?
I'm not suggesting this was what happened in this case - I have no knowledge of the incident nor of what briefing methods the glider pilots used. But I do think it's about time that the CAA realised that the current system is difficult to use, there is not sufficient training given, and that (aside from any recent problems which are making it worse than normal) this is creating dangerous situations where pilots do not know how to get a NOTAM briefing which contains all of the information they need. The half-hearted instructions given at CAA safety evenings (which are poorly attended, and in the main attended by the kind of pilot who probably does know how to brief himself properly) do not get the instructions conveyed to most pilots, and are no substitute for a properly designed, intuitive system which does not need a 20-page manual to be able to use properly.
Sorry for the rant - I'm in a bad mood generally today! - but although I agree that there is no excuse for a pilot not
attempting to brief himself properly, it's about time everyone realised it's a two-way street, and we need a system which makes such briefings easier and more reliable.
FFF
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